The Mountain Goats: Power chords and professional wrestling

For many of you reading this, The Mountain Goats may be an unfamiliar name. The band has been around since at least 1991, and spent the 90’s pumping out lo-fi indie-rock albums. Since the 2002 release of Tallahassee, the band has moved onto a more polished, high-fidelity style. The band has been through dozens of incarnations, with members floating in and out constantly. Singer-songwriter John Darnielle has been the only consistent, and sometimes sole member since the band’s inception. To many fans of The Mountain Goats, Darnielle is the band. In some older bootlegs, you can even hear Darnielle introduce himself to the audience as “The Mountain Goats”. Darnielle is best known for his powerful, deeply personal lyrics, and is considered by some to be among the greatest lyricists in America. There was even a short-lived movement to name him Poet Laureate. In 2014, Darnielle published his first novel, Wolf in White Van, which has since become a New York Times Best Seller.

In a recent blog post, Darnielle hinted that he would be releasing an album of songs about professional wrestling, a topic which he has written about before. Yesterday, Merge Records confirmed that Beat The Champ, a “collection of songs about professional wrestling” would be dropping in the U.S on April 7th. The announcement was accompanied by a list of tour dates, and a single, “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero”.